“We believe that your personal information belongs to you, not the state. Where private details are collected by government, they are held on trust. The government must be held accountable to its citizens, not the other way round.”
Such is the promising introduction to a new Conservative policy document on ‘Reversing the rise of the surveillance state’ earlier this week, launched by Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve and Shadow Justice Minister Eleanor Laing.
“New Labour has excessively relied on mammoth databases and wide powers of data-sharing, on the pretext that it will make government more effective and the citizen more secure.”
This is certainly true; despite being forced to give up a centralised database to store how, when and where we communicated online, the Intercept Modernisation Programme consultation rather sulkily insists this ‘would have several advantages’:
“It would be the most effective at delivering fast and efficient access in support of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies and emergency services; the least challenging technically to implement; and the cheapest to build and run.”
Mr. Grieve promises a Bill of Rights (to replace the Human Rights Act), and to scrap the children’s database and the National Identity Register. He rather noticeably avoids any mention of intercepting communications data, ID cards or indeed a general cessation in the collection of personal data. Some of the proposals echo those put forward in a Scottish consultation on data sharing and public authorities, including a measure to restrict local council access to personal communications data. But unlike the Scottish proposals, there is no hint that councils should make any effort to collect less – merely that access to data held across different accounts should be restrained.
More emphasis is placed in certain checking procedures and safeguards - such as investing the Information Commissioner with more regulatory powers – than really cutting back on state policing measures.
The private sector
Tacked onto the end of the report is the suggestion for a ‘kite mark’ for companies to adhere to – a kind of best practice for data protection in the private sector. This isn’t so much of a sketchy outline as a concept at best. The efficacity of a kite mark is also doubtful, given that it would be voluntary, and bearing in mind the stark warnings about hacking threats from Russia and China in the ‘Snooping Dragon’ report. Mr. Grieve points to the (double) hacking of Monster as an example. The report concluded chillingly that the response to external hacking would be slow – a conclusion proved correct if this final, vague measure is anything to go by.
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Filed under: Comment, politics, privacy Tagged: | dominic grieve, eleanor laing, government, politics
Comment: surveillance under the Tories
Such is the promising introduction to a new Conservative policy document on ‘Reversing the rise of the surveillance state’ earlier this week, launched by Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve and Shadow Justice Minister Eleanor Laing.
“New Labour has excessively relied on mammoth databases and wide powers of data-sharing, on the pretext that it will make government more effective and the citizen more secure.”
This is certainly true; despite being forced to give up a centralised database to store how, when and where we communicated online, the Intercept Modernisation Programme consultation rather sulkily insists this ‘would have several advantages’:
“It would be the most effective at delivering fast and efficient access in support of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies and emergency services; the least challenging technically to implement; and the cheapest to build and run.”
Mr. Grieve promises a Bill of Rights (to replace the Human Rights Act), and to scrap the children’s database and the National Identity Register. He rather noticeably avoids any mention of intercepting communications data, ID cards or indeed a general cessation in the collection of personal data. Some of the proposals echo those put forward in a Scottish consultation on data sharing and public authorities, including a measure to restrict local council access to personal communications data. But unlike the Scottish proposals, there is no hint that councils should make any effort to collect less – merely that access to data held across different accounts should be restrained.
More emphasis is placed in certain checking procedures and safeguards - such as investing the Information Commissioner with more regulatory powers – than really cutting back on state policing measures.
The private sector
Tacked onto the end of the report is the suggestion for a ‘kite mark’ for companies to adhere to – a kind of best practice for data protection in the private sector. This isn’t so much of a sketchy outline as a concept at best. The efficacity of a kite mark is also doubtful, given that it would be voluntary, and bearing in mind the stark warnings about hacking threats from Russia and China in the ‘Snooping Dragon’ report. Mr. Grieve points to the (double) hacking of Monster as an example. The report concluded chillingly that the response to external hacking would be slow – a conclusion proved correct if this final, vague measure is anything to go by.
Like this:
Filed under: Comment, politics, privacy Tagged: | dominic grieve, eleanor laing, government, politics